Cyber Service

The Lord said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." I can think of no better way of attempting that than with the Cyber Church.

In the 1980's, with the rise of cable television and public access cable, we saw the rise of televangelism. Here was a way to spread the gospel quicker, faster, and farther than the traditional Sunday preaching and Revival tours could. But Televangelism cost money - production costs and airwave time. This lead to bigger calls for teledonations, which led to more ambitious plans for the church, which led to more calls for money. Eventually, we all saw the temptations these televangelists faced and the immoral decay that eroded the televangelism ministries.

Now there's the potential for a televangelist revival of sorts - A Cybervangelist. But the network is not cable television. People come on to the web not to be preached at, but to interact with. They seek out communities of fellow thinkers and believers and they join in discussions that tend to be mostly about preaching to the choir. This is, currently, the one biggest drawback of the cyber church - we're preaching to the choir (An American cliche meaning that we're trying to convert people who already think as we do).

Chez is doing the right thing - he is trying to reach his friends that have yet to come to know the bounty of Christ's good teaching. This used to be a function of the real life church - to provide places to interact and learn the faith, as well as make new relationships and friendships. And it still is. But it can also be a function of the cyber church - provided that we approach our cybervangelism in a new internet kind of way.

We must be open to new ideas. We must be open to different ways of seeing things. We must be open to new technology and new approaches to learning. We must be sensitive to people's needs, but also to their space.

I was having dinner with my Pastor's family last night and the discussion turned to the many different models currently being employed for worship. They mentioned a church in San Diego that had 13 different services running at the same time with different music and different styles in each service. They had bought out an old school and set up a different service in each classroom. And then, using CCTV, they broadcast the sermon from a central location into each service so that the daily message was the same for each of the 13 services. This kind of tailorized Christian experience is the direction that a cyber church should go - while at the same time allowing for people to broaden their horizons.

I picture, instead, a Cyber Service - conducted along much the same lines as a Blogger Limelight - where one person hosts the service and everyone contributes something to it via their own blog. So that, for instance, on Sunday I would set up the Cyber Service blog, welcoming guests to our Cyber Church. From my Cyber Service blog would be links to Elisa's blog for the opening prayer, Andy's blog for the Sunday scripture, Pastor Peter's blog for the musical interlude, and Ariel's blog for the Sermon/Message. This would not be a substitute for our worshipping experience in REAL life, but an addition to it. And the best part would be that we would change it around and experience the different opinions of all God's people. The next week, it might be Chez doing the opening prayer, and Dan with the scriptures, and Jim with a heartfelt poem, and Sue with the Sermon. Or we might not have a Sermon at all. We might just all gather around and write Psalms one Sunday. Rather than trying for a homogenized service that was the same from week to week, we would determinedly try to keep our Cyber Service fresh and revitalizing.

Eventually, it would be hoped, our Cybervangelism would spread and other cyber churches and cyber services would spring up around the globe and we'd all have the opportunity to experience as much of God's wonderful world as possible through cyber worship with our fellow sisters and brothers everywhere.

That would be the best way to spread the gospel. That would be the best use of cyber space.